First off, Kosh's death killing a character is a good way to create drama he was a moderate character but not a major character from a story stand point it was a good idea.

I don't like it, I think the pace of season 3 and 4 could've been slower had kosh not died and not pushed the vorlons into an anti b5 pose as quickly. perhaps he could've been replaced "you've been tainted by that which you were meant to guide"

But i liked the character perhaps more than i was suppose to.

"We are all.. Kosh" - there have been assumptions that Kosh is a rank or like "Sensei" in japanese where its not really only said to teachers but people with more experience.
However the b5 wiki (http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Ulkesh) lists ; Rank:Naranek
Which would assume that kosh isn't a title as they both have different first "names"
Also they both look so different why did they think everyone would be fooled by this?
and why did it work?? oh Kosh you just went through some black paint and anger management classes had a reverse effect? oh that's fine! lol

While the vorlons might make a good story choice for a movie it'd be a movie full of jar-jar binks cgi characters lol

Also 1000 years since the last war, the shadows were rebuilding, what were the vorlons doing?
If you win a war you do slow your building of ships but you make damn sure you have enough for the next one, but the vorlons are slow to re-build slower than the shadows?
Perhaps maybe because the shadows are using human beings as ships and vorlons refuse to do that? but why? the vorlons don't seem to like humans much more than the shadows do anyway, lying to genetically modfiying and leaving them be to the ensuing chaos that results from it.

I'd like to see more of kosh more of the vorlons but i don't know how it'd be done.

First off, Kosh's death killing a character is a good way to create drama he was a moderate character but not a major character from a story stand point it was a good idea.

I don't like it, I think the pace of season 3 and 4 could've been slower had kosh not died and not pushed the vorlons into an anti b5 pose as quickly. perhaps he could've been replaced "you've been tainted by that which you were meant to guide"

I actually don't think Kosh was SUPPOSED to die. At least not so early and not like that. I think JMS painted himself into a corner, and realized there was no logical way the Shadows WOULDN'T kill Kosh, and it strained credulity that they didn't.. So he did, and blamed it on Sheridan. I think he even admits this in the script:

Sheridan: "I know, I know, if I go to Z'ha'dum I will die."
Kosh: "Yes. Now."

Implying his fate wasn't sealed UNTIL there wasy no rational way NOT to remove Kosh from the story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragzus

"We are all.. Kosh" - there have been assumptions that Kosh is a rank or like "Sensei" in japanese where its not really only said to teachers but people with more experience.
However the b5 wiki (http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Ulkesh) lists ; Rank:Naranek
Which would assume that kosh isn't a title as they both have different first "names"

"We are all Kosh" implies something a little different than "We are all Sergent Majors." It means something, but JMS has never really explained it. He's said he knows how it works, but it's difficult to explain.

My own baseless hunch is this: the Vorlon were somewhere between a hive-mind and a corporate entity. Each Vorlon was a node of this consciousness, and was more-or-less autonomous, but fulfilled a certain function for the Vorlon consciousness as a whole. So "We are all Kosh" could mean somehting like "We are all the same person" or "We are all the same mind" or whatever.

We're told the vorlon went crazy when Kosh died. Kosh was the one who cared, who stayed their hands. Perhaps Kosh's function was the impulse-control part of the mind. WHen he died, the Vorlons lost their impulse control, and went mad.

Also, I've toyed with the notion...well, I've toyed with several notions. If you're curious, I'll talk more about 'em.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragzus

Also they both look so different why did they think everyone would be fooled by this?
and why did it work?? oh Kosh you just went through some black paint and anger management classes had a reverse effect? oh that's fine! lol

Fashion. People change their clothes. WHy not alien angels? I mean, who's goign to accuse him of being an imposter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragzus

Also 1000 years since the last war, the shadows were rebuilding, what were the vorlons doing?

Well, they were engineering human telepaths for one thing. Presumably they were doing this with other species as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragzus

If you win a war you do slow your building of ships but you make damn sure you have enough for the next one, but the vorlons are slow to re-build slower than the shadows?

What makes you think that? The Vorlons are patient. And they WON the last Shadow War. We're repeatedly told that the Shadows have been awakened too early, and are forced to operate before they're really ready.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ragzus

Perhaps maybe because the shadows are using human beings as ships and vorlons refuse to do that? but why? the vorlons don't seem to like humans much more than the shadows do anyway, lying to genetically modfiying and leaving them be to the ensuing chaos that results from it.

I don't think 'like' or 'dislike' has anything to do with it. The shadows used humans (And others) as the CPU of their ships. The vorlons used humans (And others) as weapons to immobilize said ships.

In terms of philosophy, you've got lords of order versus lords of chaos. While both are detestable in the show, I think the Shadows are the slightly-less-evil of the two in that they really don't care what you do as long as you do something. The vorlons only wanted you to do THEIR thing.
I'd like to see more of kosh more of the vorlons but i don't know how it'd be done.
[/QUOTE]

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Kevin Long
(The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0, And The World's Greatest Living Thurl Ravenscroft Impersonator)http://www.kevin-long.com

Yeah i'd like to hear more of your thoughts, bouncing around ideas of "what if, what might be" is interesting to me.

And my thoughts on the vorlons not rebuilding were if they knew the shadows were coming back, because they purposely didn't wipe them out since they were battling ideals over and over and abiding by their little rules.

But from the shows point of view having an all powerful race whom the bad guys could never touch wouldn't be much of a threat.
And being on more even terms would mean a more fair ruling of "who was right and who was wrong" they could've had a written agreement like the battleship limits before ww2.
Which vorlons were more likely to obey than the shadows were.

But back to the universe point of view, if they had discovered third space around then they would've wanted to rebuild their forces to make sure they could defend themselves veruses this threat.
But that also answers why they may not have had the resources required, perhaps the incident with the third space gate caused a great drain on people/ships it was long ago however?

They're birth rate could've also been a reason.
The mysterious reasoning has always made me wonder.

I actually don't think Kosh was SUPPOSED to die. At least not so early and not like that. I think JMS painted himself into a corner, and realized there was no logical way the Shadows WOULDN'T kill Kosh, and it strained credulity that they didn't.. So he did, and blamed it on Sheridan. I think he even admits this in the script:

Sheridan: "I know, I know, if I go to Z'ha'dum I will die."
Kosh: "Yes. Now."

Implying his fate wasn't sealed UNTIL there wasy no rational way NOT to remove Kosh from the story.

Around the time Interludes and Examinations aired, JMS made a post along the lines that Kosh was always intended to die but not originally that early in the series. He described it as the character basically telling him, "It's time." But yeah, the script kind of demands it really. I had a trawl through JMS news but can't find said post, if I can find it I'll link to it later.

I think Sheridan was always intended to go to Z'Ha'Dum alone (although he wasn't really – Kosh was with him, in a way.)

I actually don't think Kosh was SUPPOSED to die. At least not so early and not like that. I think JMS painted himself into a corner, and realized there was no logical way the Shadows WOULDN'T kill Kosh, and it strained credulity that they didn't.. So he did, and blamed it on Sheridan. I think he even admits this in the script:

Sheridan: "I know, I know, if I go to Z'ha'dum I will die."
Kosh: "Yes. Now."

Implying his fate wasn't sealed UNTIL there wasy no rational way NOT to remove Kosh from the story.

Around the time Interludes and Examinations aired, JMS made a post along the lines that Kosh was always intended to die but not originally that early in the series. He described it as the character basically telling him, "It's time." But yeah, the script kind of demands it really. I had a trawl through JMS news but can't find said post, if I can find it I'll link to it later.

I think Sheridan was always intended to go to Z'Ha'Dum alone (although he wasn't really – Kosh was with him, in a way.)

I remember the quote in question.

I've wondered if Kosh and Lorien were originally the same character. Like Kosh was only pretending to be a Vorlon, or if Kosh had some role he was supposed to fulfil, but couldn't because JMS had to kill him off, so he created Lorien to fulfil that function. I don't place great stock in it, but I've wondered about it.

__________________
Sincerely,

Kevin Long
(The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0, And The World's Greatest Living Thurl Ravenscroft Impersonator)http://www.kevin-long.com

Yeah i'd like to hear more of your thoughts, bouncing around ideas of "what if, what might be" is interesting to me.

Ok. One theory is that the Vorlons are inherently a big blob-like entity, a gestalt (not a physical blob, mind you). They bud off bits of themselves as needed to do functions away from the gestalt, and these are re-absorbed after the job is done. Kosh was away from the blob for so long that his opinions and thinking began to conspicuously differ from the gestalt as a whole. He started to identify with us, or care for us, or whatever. This put him in dutch with the getalt as a whole.

If this is true, then "We are all Kosh" could be taken to mean that "We are all disconnected aspects fo the Vorlon Consciousness"

There's my not-entirely-unrelated theory that each vorlon had some aspect of the Vorlon Overmind that he controled or regulated or whatever. Kosh's death affected their sanity. In this sense "We are all Kosh" could mean something along the lines of "We are all nodes in one huge mind."

Then there's this one: Lorien was the first one. Lorien was energy based, but took humanoid form when it suited him. The Vorlons did this same trick. Lorien talks about his people achieving immortality and consciousness spontaneously from the beginning, which doesn't make much sense in and of itself, unless we consider that Lorien was some kind of echo of the big bang itself which gradually developed an identity, then decided to replicate himself. His species have all since gone extinct, he says, but he also says that the younger races were guided by him and his.

Shadows and Vorlons were among the first. Vorlons could have been direct creations of the "Lorienites" in which case it could mean something like "We are all children of Lorien" or "Servants of Lorien" or "Worshipers of Lorien" or something like that.

(For this one to work, it makes more sense if we assume Kosh himself was originally intended to fulfil the narrative functions of Lorien before JMS needed to kill him off and hence had to introduce a new character)

It's also possible that Kosh was, himself, "The First One." At least in an early draft. This would explain the Vorlons going nuts when he died, and as they're directily created by him, "We are all Kosh" would make literal sense. (Remember: in the earliest draft of B5, the Vorlons lose. Badly.)

There's also the question of whom Kosh 2 (Gezundheit) is talkign to when he says "We are all Kosh." Who's the "We" he's talking about? Most of Sinclair's role got put on Sheridan. We know that humanity evolves into a Vorlon-like state in a million years. We know there's time travel involved. What if Sinclair (or Sheridan) personally evolves into something like that and travels back in time. What if Sinclair/Sheridan *IS* Kosh, come back in time. What if K2(Gezundheit) is his kid or offspring or energy-based clone or whatever?

What if the "We" refers to the chunk of Kosh in Sherian? (Which is admittedly unlikely as he seems not to know such a thing exists). The idea that the "We" refers to K2 and Sheridan can't be ignored.

So there's my theories. The major ones, anyway.

__________________
Sincerely,

Kevin Long
(The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0, And The World's Greatest Living Thurl Ravenscroft Impersonator)http://www.kevin-long.com

Ooh Lots of theories. Firstly I always had the feeling that Lorien almost WAS Sheridan. Sheridan that didnt do the jump so was stuck in purgatory for eternity. Unable to action until another came along and freed him from his prison. (much like in the lost tales with the demon)

I've wondered if Kosh and Lorien were originally the same character. Like Kosh was only pretending to be a Vorlon, or if Kosh had some role he was supposed to fulfil, but couldn't because JMS had to kill him off, so he created Lorien to fulfil that function. I don't place great stock in it, but I've wondered about it.

Lorien had that throwaway line about Kosh: "I think I met him once, long ago." Kosh undoubtedly knew about Lorien and knew where he was and intended for Sheridan to find him to try and bring an end to the cycle. Kosh must have had some Vorlon forces loyal to him with which to attack the Shadows. Maybe Kosh headed up a rogue group in the Vorlon Empire who realised the constant cycle between chaos and order wasn't the way forward any more, but they didn't make their presence known until Interludes and Examinations? That was maybe another reason why Kosh was reluctant to help Sheridan at first, because it wouldn't only put Kosh in danger but would expose his group?

Ooh Lots of theories. Firstly I always had the feeling that Lorien almost WAS Sheridan. Sheridan that didnt do the jump so was stuck in purgatory for eternity. Unable to action until another came along and freed him from his prison. (much like in the lost tales with the demon)

Nah maybe not. It's late.

Happy new year one and all.

That's interesting. We both felt that we were looking at multiple versions of the same character (Though not the same ones)

__________________
Sincerely,

Kevin Long
(The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0, And The World's Greatest Living Thurl Ravenscroft Impersonator)http://www.kevin-long.com